Portraits by Benjamin Shine

I received an email a couple weeks ago from Peter, a reader who had seen the post about Simon Schubert, and he was recommending I take a look at Benjamin Shine‘s portraits. I’d peeked at them, and now I’m finally posting. They’re amazing! He essentially “paints with fabric”.

The pieces are big—around 4×5 feet or so—and they’re most impressive when you see the detail shots.

One that’s received quite a bit of attention is a large portrait of President Obama made of a single retired American flag woven through nylon mesh.

Probably the most striking pieces is the portrait you see at the top of 17th century painter, Rembrandt. Sort of an homage to Rembrandt’s use of light and shadow, this piece looks like it might be a charcoal drawing when in fact its is constructed out of one piece of tulle pleated and pressed between sheets of plexiglass. Unbelievable.